California Attorney General Rob Bonta will announce California’s 2025 crime statistics on July 1, at a 10 AM press conference in San Francisco. 

If the crime data from 2025 are consistent with past years, marijuana arrests will be down, but racial disparities among those arrested will remain. And the disparities will be particularly bad for juveniles.

ARRESTS ARE DOWN BUT DISPARITIES REMAIN

Although the number of people arrested for cannabis crimes in California has dramatically declined since the voters legalized adult use and sales of cannabis in 2016, people of Latino descent were twice as likely as Whites to be arrested for cannabis crimes in California, and Blacks were five times more likely, in 2024. These racial disparities have worsened since legalization.

Latinos are, year after year, the most-arrested race for cannabis, with over 1000 adult arrests still happening yearly within that group as of 2024.

According to the CA DOJ’s 2024 Crime in California report (Tables 31 & 36), of the 2369 adult marijuana arrests in 2024:
1112 (46.9%) of arrestees were Hispanic
465 (19.6%) were White, and
463 (19.5%) Black

According to US Census data estimates for July 2024, 40.8% of California’ population was Latino or Hispanic, 33.6% were White, and only 6.4% were Black

Weighting for population, 5.23 times as many adult Blacks were arrested for cannabis crimes in California as Whites in 2024, and 1.97 times as many Latinos were. Those numbers compare to 5.18 times for Blacks and 1.97 as many Latinos (the same) in 2023.

In 2016, before Prop. 64 took effect, the arrest disparities were only 3.51 times for Blacks and 1.43 for Latinos. Those numbers began to jump in 2017 after legalization, when Blacks were 3.83 times more likely than Whites to be arrested, and Latinos were 1.54 times as likely.

JUVENILE NUMBERS EVEN WORSE

For juvenile marijuana arrests (ages 10-19), of 461 total arrests in 2024 (Tables 33 &36):
308 were Hispanic (66.8%)
71 were White (15.4%), and
57 were Black (12.4%).

The 2024 figure of over 60% Latino juvenile arrests tracks with numbers from 2021 (60.2%) and 2020 (61%).

“That the injustice of these racial disparities in cannabis arrests continues to exist, and has even worsened since legalization, is appalling,” said Cal NORML deputy director Ellen Komp. “Prop. 64’s goals included bringing justice and equity to communities impacted by the War on Drugs. We must do better.”